Saturday, July 31, 2010

Portrait of Willakenzie soil series (an Ultic Haploxeralfs) at the 400 ft elevation contour on "Mary's Hill," Corvallis, Oregon. Fractures in sandstone bedrock form "eye" structures. This profile is exceptionally red for the series.

Portrait of soil (Calcic, Chromic Leptosols [Serpentinitic]) beneath a lichen-encrusted stone wall in forest of Troodos Mountains, Cyprus. Lichen species and the diameters of their thalli (bodies) indicate Medieval to Late Roman age for the construction of the dry-stack stone wall. That the wall is founded on soil indicates soil development and thickness was advanced and still present at the time of wall construction.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Portrait of mound-intermound soils of the Biscuit Scablands of the Columbia Basin, in northcentral Oregon, as exposed in a county road cut. These are soils mapped as Bakeoven-Condon complex. Bakeoven soil series is a loamy-skeletal, mixed, superactive, mesic Lithic Haploxerolls; Condon soil series is a fine-silty, mixed, superactive, mesic Typic Haploxerolls, by Soil Taxonomy, 11 ed. (US Dept. of Agriculture).